Impact – Corruption spreads HIV/Aids

Georgia Novice 2007-2008 25 of 24

CORRUPTION KILLS AIDS PATIENTS – WORKING, EFFECTIVE CLINICS ARE
LOCKED OUT AND PATIENTS CANNOT RECEIVE TREATEMENT

Baskind Roy 06, August 2006

(Roy, Neurology resident, Montreal Neurological Institute at Mc Gills University, from "Corruption siphons AIDS money: Human greed compounds the misery of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa,”).

From my experience in two African countries, I have seen firsthand what kills AIDS patients: corruption .

When I arrived at the Bulongwa Lutheran Hospital in the Makete District of Tanzania in February, I saw a robust and effective HIV clinic in action. A dedicated and effective staff of professionals was treating 650 HIV patients. The worst-affected area in Tanzania was getting just what it needed: medical and managerial expertise from people like Dr. Rainer Brandl, Jackson Mbogela, and Mary Musoma, members of the clinical team. Partec, a world-leading innovator of medical blood-cell counters, had donated the machine (a CD4 counter) needed to monitor patients taking anti-AIDS medications. And the people living with HIV had organized into one of rural Africa's most effective and energetic AIDS activist organization, PIUMA.

The clinic was working beautifully.

Canadian friends of the clinic had made a first visit and were intent on a fruitful partnership. Patients were getting better and the community, devastated by AIDS, was coming back to life.

Today, five months later, the clinic has been crippled. The original staff was locked out. The clinic's services have been severely reduced. The donated Partec cell-counter has been tossed out and replaced with a Becton Dickinson machine that doesn't work and on which the hospital technician has no experience or training. Brandl has been forced to leave. The patients on medications are not being cared for properly - yesterday, we received word the 19th patient at the clinic has died since the lockout began.

Audits have shown under the stewardship of the South Central Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania, $288,000 Canadian in donated funds has disappeared. Under intense pressure from PIUMA, the diocese has admitted to fraud, but refuses to take legal action against the culprits. Instead, HIV-positive activists with PIUMA are being harassed and punished for speaking out against the church.

The local government seems to lack the will or resources to get involved. But local corruption is only part of the story. The business of treating AIDS has now become a large international industry. There is a lot of money to be made through government contracts for companies like technology suppliers Becton Dickinson. Certainly, these companies have a right to do good and to profit. However, what is increasingly clear is that large Corporations (sometimes with the support of foreign government agencies and NGOs) are exerting questionable influence to keep out innovative competition. No one can say for sure why the health minister of Tanzania arrived at the Bulongwa clinic a few weeks ago with the unwieldy (and apparently defective) Becton Dickinson machine after ordering the dependable, affordable Partec machine decommissioned.

But the whole scene stinks of corruption and has put patients' lives (especially pediatric patients) at risk .

The Partec machine was able to perform the vital function of calculating the percentage of blood cells in the body, which is vital in treating children with HIV. The Becton Dickinson machine cannot perform this function. There are a few lessons to be learned in Bulongwa for the entire AIDS community. First, corruption is not uniquely African. It occurs wherever it is allowed to occur - it's just more damaging in poor countries.

Donors need to use far more of their funds building systems of accountability and fighting fraud.Financial oversight needs to be a key priority.

Second, donors, recipient governments and aid-agencies need to put in place and fund strong anti-corruption mechanisms where theft is prosecuted and thieves jailed. The current climate of no Corruption Disadvantage accountability and no enforcement is deadly.

And, finally, shareholders of companies that sell products and services to the people battling the HIV pandemic need to demand scrupulously honest business practices from their managers.

The fight against AIDS needs more money not less. But donors need to handle their donations in a professional way, with absolute accountability. Handing out money and then looking the other way eases feelings of guilt but does nothing to save lives.

Unfortunately, the real killer isn't HIV, it's the virus of human greed.